When I first saw trailers for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it seemed potentially interesting. I was unaware at the time it was based on an Alan Moore comic book, but I liked the concept. Sean Connery was a draw, too. But like so many, I was dissuaded by such bad word of mouth that I passed on it. Then in May 2008, I checked out the trade paperback collected edition of the original comic and found I quite liked the source material. A year later on Free Comic Book Day 2009, I found the film on DVD at The Great Escape and took the chance on it.

Earlier this year, I wrote a piece for Flickchart entitled "Who Told You That Movie Sucked?" in which I discussed the nature of movies whose reputations were soured before anyone ever saw them because of distracting attention paid to externalities. In retrospect, I probably should have included The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in that piece.

Much of the pre-release negativity had to do with on-set conflicts between Connery and director Stephen Norrington. The perception quickly became that production was an out of control mess from which nothing resembling even an "average" film could possibly emerge. The film has the dubious distinction of being known as not just Connery's final film, but the movie that he hated making so much that it made him quit making movies entirely.

I wasn't there for the production, but I've seen the film and truthfully, it's a whole lot better than its reputation. The narrative is focused, the pace is brisk, the cast is solid with nice chemistry, and the sets and costumes are all truly impressive. Admittedly, the reveal of the true villainous plot feels shoehorned in at the end but even that mostly works because that's where the lion's share of the action takes place.

One way in which The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen stands out in retrospect is contrasting it with two Marvel Comics movies made later. The League creation is strikingly similar to the team-building in Marvel's The Avengers, whereas the villain's plot - and part of the finale - is almost identical to that of The Incredible Hulk. I wasn't very conscious of these parallels when I watched the two Marvel films, but it was blatantly obvious to me as I re-watched The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen this time.

For this second viewing of the film, I elected to watch it with one of its two commentary tracks. However, I wanted to also follow along with the film itself so I played it with the subtitles. I wish I had thought to do that more often when playing commentary tracks.

Commentary by Producers Don Murphy and Trevor Albert and Actors Shane West, Jason Flemyng and Tony Curran

I'm not a fan of group commentary tracks where different parties are recorded separately and then edited together. One of the reasons for this is that there's no actual conversation between parties, meaning no one is prompting anyone else. Thankfully, actors Jayson Fleming and Tony Curran were recorded together and clearly enjoyed not only making the film, but chatting about it. They shared a few little anecdotes about Connery that were amusing. To be honest, I wish they'd had an entire commentary track to themselves.

The other primary reason I'm not big on spliced-together commentary tracks is repetition. Inevitably, each party will think to talk at different times about things already covered by someone else. Much was made by all commenters, for instance, of the flooding in Prague during production. It became tedious, largely because all anyone had to say was that it happened, it was the worst flooding in the area in a very long time and that the Nautilus set was ironically under water.

Still, I did appreciate the remarks from producers Don Murphy and Trevor Albert about things like how Fox's insistence on a PG-13 rating inhibited the film from really going for its potential and how many elements of the production were practical rather than digital. There are also some well-reasoned rebuttals against fan nitpicks about some of the film's tweaks, such as the addition of the car and the age of Tom Sawyer.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was re-ranked on my Flickchart to #321/1539
That seems pretty high to me, but that's where the ranking process took it!